Chapter Text
Rin rubbed his eyes, everything was a blur. Blinking the blur away as he looked up, the sky wasn’t normal, it was a night sky with a half moon. When he had left Assiah it was the early morning. He shrugged, they do say Assiah and Gehenna are mirrored after all but do classes really start at night? He sighed as he started to walk down a path, seeing the school standing tall up ahead.
From the distance, it just looked like a normal highschool, ‘But I don’t believe it. There has to be something strange or unusual with it.’
The path was also strangely normal but the branches stretched out like arms grasping for freedom, the leaves danced in agony as they moaned in pain. The wind danced by not seeing the scene around it or just not caring. The air wasn’t cold, it was almost a burning heat. The wind played with his hair and bit onto his skin with the heat, but nothing was there. ‘This place is horrible,’ was the only thing he could think about. It was all weird and uncanny. The place only being lit up by moonlight made the shadows dance and taunt, like a cult doing a sacrifice.
As he continued down the path the terrain moved with him. Small hills, sometimes there was a dip, but it caused the dramatic taunt of the shadows to intensify. Snap, snap , crack, THUD. Rin flinched, his bones almost leaping out of his skin.
“What was that?” Rin muttered looking near the small cliff he had to walk past. He gulped and kept walking, trying not to draw attention to himself so he didn’t speed up. The sweat beaded down his face, his heart sped up. Crack, snap, footsteps from the cliff coming closer. Rin completely froze up, ‘shit.’ His eyes widened once he looked up, it was a person standing at the ledge his back turned.
Then he fell, swiftly Rin ran to where he was and caught the strange person. Right as they collided, he felt a chill strike through his bones, run. His breathing was heavier and his heart went faster. He snapped out of it when the mysterious guy took a deep desperate breath in, latching onto Rin’s shoulders as if he was drowning. Rin staggered back, tightening his hold on the guy as he started coughing.
“Woah are you alright?” Rin exclaimed, still in shock by it all. He looked at Rin, his eyes widened a bit, still panting, Rin continued, “um, hello?”
He blinked and shook his head, “s-sorry,” he slurred on his words.
“No just what happened?” Rin asked, his eyebrows went down with worry.
“Don’t worry about it,” he waved off the question, looking down and tried to escape Rin’s grasp without falling again.
Rin gulped, “alright, sorry about that.” He set the mysterious guy down on his feet. He was around the same height as Rin and was only just a bit thinner, but he was so much lighter than he should have been, almost to a freaky extent.
“It’s fine, the fall would have been harder if I didn’t get any help,” he reassured Rin as he staggered about.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Rin broke it, “so do you go to the school too?”
He nodded, “yeah I just transferred.”
“What a coincidence! So did I!” Rin grinned, “my name is Rin Okumura, what’s yours?” He held out his hand for a handshake, feeling more at ease.
“Alexander Ashryver,” he shook Rin’s hand.
‘Alexander Ashryver? Huh, that’s not Japanese, but that last name is cool,’ Rin smiled.
“So we’re both transfering on the same day?” Alexander inquired.
Rin nodded, “guess so!”
Alexander flashed a smile to Rin, making his heart skip a beat, “I’m glad, you seem nice Rin.”
“Ah! I um thanks,” Rin stammered, scratching the back of his neck a bit awkwardly.
“Would you like to walk together then? It’s better with company,” Alexander offered.
Rin gulped, “sure, that sounds nice.”
He flashed another smile as they walked together to the school. The place did ease up when he was walking next to Alexander, probably because he wasn’t alone. Still, he was strange, falling like that and brushing it off. Rin glanced at Alexander, his pale skin almost reflected the moonlight making him glow, his hair was almost a perfect contrast being shoulder length and a color that was like a smoky amethyst. It perfectly framed his face and all his completely perfect features. When Rin blinked he could remember being so up close to him just a few moments ago, looking at him with beautiful light blue eyes with a slight pink to his lips. Rin shook his head, no that’s not something he should be thinking about. What is going on? He glanced back at Alexander with a slight chill, he seemed almost too perfect of course Rin should remember he’s a demon. He shouldn’t get too close, he was clearly dangerous.
“You alright?” Alexander’s voice snapped Rin out of his thoughts with a slight jump.
He cleared his throat, “yeah, I’m fine, sorry about that. Just thinking.”
“Nervous?” He asked with his silky smooth voice.
Rin shook his head, feeling chills, “No! No! Why would I be?”
“You’re lying!” Alexander teased, leaning forward while looking up at Rin, “I can tell you know!”
He gulped, the chills refusing to leave even with the hot air, “alright fine I was lying! I am nervous!”
Alexander smiled, standing up straight again, with a soft smile he looked down, “I’m a bit nervous too. I’m glad I’m not alone with this.”
The chills went down, Rin looked at Alexander with a soft smile of his own, “then, would you like to be friends?”
Alexander whipped his head to look at Rin, his mouth slightly agape, “really? You want to be my friend?”
“I don’t see why not,” Rin shrugged and grinned a toothy grin.
Alexander smiled, “I’d like that! A lot Rin!”
Rin paused for a moment before continuing on like nothing happened, “Great!” ‘I’m guessing calling someone by their first name is common in Gehenna? Not exactly used to that. This place is weird and different. Though, I don’t know what I was expecting. All of this is foreign to me.’
“Wait a second,” Alexander said, snapping Rin out of his thoughts again, damn he really needs to stop spacing out.
“What’s wrong?” Rin raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
Alexander moved out a hand, “can I look at your schedule?”
“Why?” Rin slightly tilted his head, feeling his tail slightly move beneath his clothes, “do you want to know if we’re in the same class?”
Alexander nodded, “yeah, maybe if we’re lucky we can sit next to each other!” He smiled sweetly with slight shines in his eyes that reflected moonlight, clearly he was excited.
Rin handed Alexander his schedule list, he took it and skimmed through it. Handing it back to Rin, he smiled even brighter, “we have the same classes!”
“Really? Well that’s a good thing,” Rin smiled back to Alexander as they continued to walk down the path.
At some point during the walk, Rin’s eyes went back to Alexander. This time his clothes. He was wearing normal clothing that would be found in Assiah, which was suspicious. ‘Maybe it’s the dress code? I mean there’s no uniform policy, but maybe there’s something with wearing Assiah clothing?’ Rin tried to reason with himself, it would also be a good thing for him as he was wearing his everyday clothes that he used to wear a lot a few years ago, a gray jacket with a dark blue hoodie and a black short-sleeve shirt underneath, also black fingerless gloves. Along with that, if it truly was a school that helped demons hide with people then dressing accordingly is obvious. Alexander wore a light yellow cardigan that only had one button buttoned right below his chest exposing his white shirt underneath.
Though he found his eyes landing at the curious thing around his neck that fell to his chest, a cross necklace. It was just a plain black cross that would be normal in Assiah, but not here. What was he doing wearing something like that? He felt his throat go dry, it was strange, too strange. So far everything about this guy has been strange, he feels so human but something is off, uncanny.
Before Rin could speak, Alexander spoke first, “hey we’re here!”
Snapping out of his thoughts again, he looked away from Alexander. The school looked like a regular high school in Assiah, just with a darker color palette with things that made it stand out as not from Assiah. Like the fences being a bit too pointed and stained, the dark bricks it was made from, a few windows being broken or just being a square hole. Looking closer, it seemed like it was a castle built in the shape of a school. Small for a castle, large for a school.
Before he knew it, Rin was being dragged into the school by Alexander. Rin blinked, looking down, he had grabbed onto the sleeve of Rin’s jacket.
“Um, you could just hold my hand you know,” Rin pointed out, moving his hand to grab onto Alexander’s hand.
“Eh?” He looked down at their hands a bit confused, “oh uh alright.” He blinked before turning and continued to walk to class.